Strangely the night before I left for the East Coast I made pies. Nectarine, Santa Rosa plum and boysenberry with a dash of rose geranium leaves and flowers. A normal person wouldn't have so much fruit in their house before they are about to leave on a trip. A reasonable person would leave the day to clean the house, pack and eat up what's left in the fridge.

Suffice to say this pastry chef is neither sane nor reasonable when it comes to summer. The Saturday before I left I made it to two farmer's markets. I HAD to buy the Santa Rosa's. And the nectarines lept into my hands with their bespeckled selves. After forcing someone to buy a flat of
boysenberries, he unloaded a few baskets on my guilty self.

The recipe you ask? I use my favorite pie crust recipe from the Baker's Dozen Cookbook. Unlike most all recipes, this dough does not need to rest, so you can use it right away! No one enjoys rolling out cold, brittle dough, so go ahead and bring this recipe into your home, add it to your repertoire.

My Kitchen-Aid can handle a batch that makes 4 circles of dough and it could
probably handle making 5 but I rarely make a topless pie. I love dough, so I figure the more the better. I don't believe in shortening. I've never trusted it. Even when it was considered safe like cigarettes, the IUD and DDT. No matter how flaky it supposedly makes biscuits and pie crusts, I loathe the roof of my mouth being coated with the thin layer of plasticky substance that never seems to melt or digest.

Here are some hints for taking the scare out of pie dough making:

Your kitchen should be cool or room temperature but not hot. In summer try to make your dough in the early morning or at night. Use good butter. The less expensive your butter, the less butterfat and the more water it will have. Even if you do everything right, if you are not using quality ingredients, your dough will say this. Clear the kitchen of clutter. Your work and rolling surface should be clean, dry and spacious. I use a very large, free-standing, heavy butcher-block cutting board. It's so thick it will not move once I set it down.

Freeze your pie plates before you start. If, after you cube your butter, it begins to melt or soften, lay it out on a plate and freeze it until it is completely frozen. Start your ice water at least 10 minutes before you need it. This will insure that it is actually ice water, not just cold water with ice melting in it. Take your watch and rings off, pull your hair back if you have it. Have a clean, completely dry pastry brush nearby.

As you are streaming your ice water into your flour and butter mixture, pay very close attention. Watch its every move. Do not answer the phone or daydream. You do not want the dough to "come together into a ball" in the mixer! No. You want it to barely bind. When it is barely bound, stop the mixer immediately and turn it our onto your completely dry, verylightly floured work surface.

Flour your hands generously. Tilt the rolling pin and sprinkle it with flour as you rotate the pin. With your hands, take this scraggly looking mass of barely held together dough, and just push it together. You want something that looks like a circle because you are going to be cutting it into two or four pieces, depending on how much you made. But do not spend more than a couple of minutes with your hands on the dough.

Using a big knife or a bench scraper, cut this circle of dough to create as equally sized pieces as you can. Pull out one piece at a time and, without handling it too much, shape into a circle. Do not worry if they do not look cohesive. You are going to wrap your disks in plastic wrap. Give the disks a little breathing room in the plastic, because you are now going to use the heel of your hand to press the dough together, and flatten it a bit.

If you are a person who runs hot you may want to chill these disks for a spell in the fridge. Because I was rolling out four circles of crust I kept all but the one I was working with chilling.

Unwrap your package and lightly flour the rolling surface. Flour the top of the disk and pat down with your floured hands.

With as little flour as you can manage, roll the dough into the crust size that you need. Constantly pick up the dough and move it. If you feel it sticking, gently lift up one side and throw some flour underneath. Quickly! **If you are rolling dough and it is not moving, you may end up with a tough crust.** What you want to see in the finished product is visible smears and pieces of butter.

Try to control the rolling pin and move from the center out. Try to stay away from using the rolling pin to go back and forth. Your rhythm should go something like this:

If you are right handed be careful not to roll too heavily on this side. You want the crust as evenly rolled as you can muster. A thin or thick crust won't kill anyone but it won't bake evenly...

Pull your frozen pie dish out and lay your dough into it. If you see that it is coated with flour, use your dry pastry brush to clear it of excess flour. Crimp or fold or leave the edges raw. If you need to trim, use the sharpest scissors in the house as using a knife tends to stretch the dough.

If you are making two pies, roll out and lay in the bottoms first, freezing after each.

Now you can put your filling together and pre-heat the oven. The less time the fruit stays in the bowl with the sugar, the less it will macerate and the more likely you will have chunks of individual fruit personality to meet when you can finally eat it.

If you are making two pies, start with a hotter oven than you need, let's say at least 25F.

When your filling is ready, roll out the tops. Move as quickly as you can as the oven's heat is now affecting the temperature of the dough.

I like to sometimes brush a little cream on the dough, and or sprinkle a generous amount of raw/turbinado sugar on top. Raw sugar is not quite as sweet as white sugar and it won't melt in the oven, so it creates a nice extra texture that lays on top of the buttery-flakiness of the all butter dough.

Using a glass baking dish is helpful especially in the baking. Make sure your top and bottom crusts are getting some good color. I bake my pies on a cookie pan with parchment on top so that when the pie insides bubble up and out, my dish-washing will be that much easier later on.

Although pie is hard to resist when it comes out of the oven, pie is best when it has had time to settle, cool down and come together.

My strongest suggestions concerning the filling are about the amount of
sugar and thickener you use. Attempt to assemble the pies with fruits of varying textures, sweetnesses, and tart-acidic characteristics. This way you won't need as much sweetener. Remember that no matter how much cornstarch or tapioca or flour you add, the pie will not stand upright on the plate the way Diner pies do. Those fillings are far from the fruit they mimic, many of them do not even need to be refrigerated!

The more thickener you use, the less the fruit will taste like itself. This is a great fact.

Pies, like summer and preserve making, is a celebration of fruit at its prime, bursting with
elbow-lickingly sticky juices. Ripe fruit, an overabundance of it, and company coming for the weekend. Test the limits of people mouths, not the strength of starch activation.

I don't refrigerate my pies unless there's still some left after the third day. But they do reheat nicely in a toaster oven. If I'm in an English mood I'll have warm pie with cold whipping cream poured over top. But nothing beats real vanilla ice cream.

Conquer the pie crust this summer! Don't be afraid! Use these instructions and ask questions in the comment section for further details.

Hi Shuna,
I want to thank you for your incredibly valuable crust-making post. I am becoming more and more excited about pastry lately. I just made my first tart (with fresh figs!) and to me, it was spectacular. I want to do pie now and am on the lookout for summer fruit that is worthy of my efforts. It is not so easy to find in South Florida, believe it or not. I also really enjoyed your response to the review of Heat. I have not yet read it, but you make me want to read it much more now. It sounds like a really honest account, and I appreciate excellent writing. You emailed me awhile back about the distracting background pattern on my blog. It turns out that I had no idea that in Firefox and other browsers, the background took over the whole screen! In IE, all my text was on a white background. We finally realized what you were referring to and fixed the problem. I feel awful that you thought I would subject my reader's eyes to text on such a busy pattern! Thanks again for the pie post.
Julie

Shuna,
Your level of detail is awe inspring. As someone who used to bake hundreds of pies a week competing with a commercial bread oven, I learned some things just reading your post. I can't wait to get into my [now amateur] kitchen and put them to use.
Thanks.

I went olallieberry picking at Swanton last weekend and made a big batch of jam, saving just enough berries to use in a peach olallie pie. Then I lost the nerve (and the time) and ate those berries and peaches in their pure, naked goodness. When crust phobia strikes again, I know where I'll be looking for help and encouragement. Go Eggbeater!

Thanks so much for this post! I love to bake, but I've always been intimedated by the pie crust. I just made one on Sunday with freshly picked ollaberries and it was really good -- but I did have some trouble with my dough. Your advice is great! It totally addressed my problems. I'm ready to tackle my next pie! thanks

I never wanted birthday cakes when I was little. I wanted my grandmother's butterscotch PIE. Her crust was like HEAVEN. I miss those pies, and her, terribly. Thanks for the great directions ... perhaps I'll try to carry on Maw Maw's tradition ...

I agree with so much of this
Definitely no margarine
Always raw sugar
And I will have to try the no cooling required crust.
The other thing about homemade pie is how happy people are to eat it. It is truly a treat that someone put time and energy into. To share a homemade pie with someone shows them how important they are to you. I feel like it is a gift like no other.
PS I love your site - from across the country (NE Florida.) I was a chef for 5 years, pastry for 5 years, caterer for 5 years. Now starting my own place. I love the sense of community I get reading your site and knowing others think the way I do. If only our farmers markets were like yours! We'll get there!

Shuna,
I will try the freezing. FYI, I use pennies as pie weights, the additional weight helps, and although I can't offer empirical data, anecdotally the metal promotes interior browning (although they are more expensive than beans).
Thanks,
F

Thank you, Shuna! I'm with you about summer. I do more baking in summer than ever. The only challenge when I lived in California was saving enough fruit to bake. In Massachusetts, it's less challenging, because way too much of our fruit comes from Washington and California anyway, single hybrids bred for shelf life, picked green and never really ripening to full sweetness or nutritional value before they rot. No nectarines here leap into my hands, and the strawberries make me cry, and it's all made that much tougher by the fact that I'm a total stickler for organics. What we do see here does make some pretty good pies, though.

If you have not already done so, I highly recommend reading the book American Pie (absolutely no relation to the pop song or the stupid movies) by Pascale LeDraoulec. Basically it recounts the author's adventures with various friends and an old Volvo traveling across the country looking for people who still make pie by hand -- and their recipes. It's funny and beautiful.

Lots of great tips here, even for a long-time pastry maker. I lost the knack a couple of years back but am finally the pastry groove back ... it took returning to lard / shortening but I'll be progressing to butter again any week now! But only after re-conferring with this post! Thanks so much, this is just terrific. REALLY.

How nice to read about making pies! I went to visit my dad in Vermont recently, and we made six pies in three days. My favorite was peach/raspberry/strawberry. The main difference is that instead of sugar we used maple syrup (I guess thats what happens in Vermont---maple syrup finds its way into all your cooking). The maple syrup worked really well and had a rich flavor-- really delicious.
Shuna-thanks again for writing, I always love reading your posts!

Goodness! Thanks for all these comments! I hope y'all come back and tell me how pie making went!

Fatemeh-- you can come watch me anytime. but you know, you will need to BE in California to do it!

JF, pennies as pie weights will indeed speed browning. Copper is an incredible conductor of heat. But perhaps a bit dangerous as I often need to get my beans out while they're still hot, and with pennies that would not be easy.

Randi-- The brisee recipe is lower in butter than this one, but also very good. I like to use brisee for pies like pumpkin and pecan, as they get a little less soggy with a liquid filling.
____________________________

And you're welcome-- I love writing and passing this stuff on. Who knows, maybe one day someone will make pie for me!

I can bake a twelve layer Dobosh Torte by I can't make pie crust to save my soul. My husband finally got desperate and called his mother for her recipe. Now when he's hungry for pie, he makes the crust and I make the filling. We call ourselves the pie squad

Love the information you've provided about making pie crusts. I live in Australia, so we don't have the pie tradition that you do - I think our greatest exposure to the pie concept was thanks to Kyle McLachlan and Twin Peaks, which was a hit here. I've always been a pastry klutz, so I'm looking forward to trying your techniques, especially the directional rolling pin techniques! I wonder if you might not share your knowledge on the subject of what we call a fruit "crumble" ... I think it may be the same as your "crisps"... in which fresh, sometimes poached fruits, are topped with a butter-flour-spice mixture and baked. The most common here is apple crumble. I've lost my recipe for the crumble topping that I used to love and ever since I've had no luck with them whatsoever. Can you help???

It is somehow gratifying to see someone else develops such detailed baking procedures (I say efficient, you say obsessive-compulsive...). This is why I am unable to commit to a food blog --my recipes are a miasma of notes and sidebars that would suck all but the most perfecting (not -ist!) baker straight to the Safeway frozen pie section.

Like you, I only do all-butter crusts. (I have thought about working on a what I think of as a traditional "American-style" crust that includes shortening, but I just never make that slightly gooey, American-style (diner style?) pie... ) One more suggestion towards keeping the ingredients as cold as possible that has made the difference for me in assuring flakiness: I keep premeasured containers of flour in the freezer.

This is amazing. I am awestruck by your details and beyond-helpful tricks. My mother-in-law is known for her pie crust, but she uses butter flavored Crisco. I am SO with you on that film it leaves in your mouth. It tastes flaky and dense, but the film and knowledge of what's in the crust always kills it for me.

I cannot wait to take a stab at "real" pie crust. Now I just need to go fondle some fruit.

PS-Met you at Blogher this weekend, and again, I really appreciated all the comments and questions you shared. Particularly what you said about food being political. I couldn't agree more. You have a new fan in me!

Shuna
I was delighted to find the info you have posted regarding the making of pie crust. I, too, am delightfully obsessed with the making of a tasty crust. I particularly liked the rhythm you suggest for rolling pie dough. I always seem to have an issue with it sticking to the rolling surface. I try not to over flour the rolling surface b/c I know it can make the crust bitter. I was going to try that Tupperware rolling mat you suggest, as well. I also thought about buying a marble block on which to roll the dough. Thanks again!

Mmm... that sounds tasty! Question: I would like to make a gluten-free pie for my mom. Will it work all right if I just substitute rice flour for regular flour, or will that screw it up? How would I change the other ingredients to make it work?

Hey Shuna,
I was wondering about your thoughts for the filling of pies. How do you go about determining sugar, thickener and spice proportions?
Now that fruit season is upon us these issues are raised for me. I would assume you'd be dealing with different quantities for say strawberry-rhubarb than blueberry-peach.
Thanks

You have no excuse not to come to my next pie class, yo! (You live here.)

Check out this post for where I start with a mixture of sweet and sour filling ingredients. But truly? I taste my fruit and guestimate. If you want to develop a recipe, use your scale, taste and go from there.

Oooohhh...such a tease...that link isn't working.
I well figured as much about guesstimating, but I'm just sort of wondering where you start, what range, etc.
I'm just a bit intimidated, as it's not something like jam where you can cook for a while, and then adjust...when it's sealed...it's sealed.

Thanks for all the tips!! I can't wait to try to make a butter crust!! How long can an apple pie keep? I am making a pie for a gift, but I don't know if I can make it the day before or if it would be better made the day they will get it.???

Help !
I am trying to create 50 small chicken pot pies and I can't easily get the pie dough into a small ( 3" )pie tin. We are going camping and I want to feed 45 people a special treat. I plan on using an America's Test Kitchen recipe for the filling and I had hoped to preform and freeze the shells before we leave town. I am hoping for a technique that will make the dough more flexible.

I have done a test run and the end result was o-k but the dough kept cracking when I tried to fit it down inside the tin. Our R-V ovens are not large or predictable which limits my choices. I do not plan on a top crust. I am planning on prebaking the bottom crust during the early part of the day and filling it with a hot mixture at the last moment. So if anyone can help me out I would appreciate it and would happily share with them any pies that are left over.

P.S. I am used to handling pie dough but only seasonally ( My job is making the pies during the Holidays )

This is a complex question. If you want your dough to be more flexible, add a smidge more fat. But also know this: it will make the dough more delicate and will need a higher heat oven to blind bake.

When dough comes to room temp. it becomes more pliable. If you freeze little circles, take them out a few at a time and "warm them up" slightly between both hands before forming them into their vessels.

The "tighter" your dough is, = the less fat to flour ratio, the more it might shrink in the little pie plate.

But it sounds like you need a dough that can be a little "abused" since your surroundings are posing great challenges.

You may also add an egg or an egg yolk to some doughs to make them more pliable and a little bit hardier.

I hope these hints help.

Are those people worth it? Or better yet: Do they know how LUCKY they are??!!

Hi Shuna. I also thank you for the wonderful detail to pie crust making. I used to make wonderful pie crust, but somehow that talent got lost along the way. So now, I search for what I'm doing wrong. A butter pie crust sounds wonderful but I was wondering. I have never used shortening, not sure why not, but now that you've given your take on it, it's highly unlikely I'll ever try it!! What I normally use is lard. It's what my mom has always used and of course, passed down to me. Like I said, I used to make wonderful pie crust, but not now. Would you know the difference between the lard and butter and I suppose 20 - 25 years ago.. they made lard different so products turned out different?? I'm guessing the butter would make a lighter crust, which certainly sounds good. My husband is a pie freak, a depressed pie freak since he married me and I have given up on pie crust!! Maybe you can rescue us both!! Thanks Shuna!!

Pie makes me happy too, fruit pies especially. I love the way you brought the whole doughy issue together. Just felt like I've been to pie school, and have a sense of clarity in my mind now. Big thank you!!

Wow, thank you thank you! Your recipe is 10X better than the one I've been using for over a decade. Your instructions were wonderfully detailed. I just taught six 12 yr olds how to make this pie dough and they all had mini pot pie sized pies done to perfection by the end of the night. Thanks again!

I am making your pie crust at 1am the night before Thanksgiving. I just baked small bit to test it first. I only have so much filling and am snowed in. All I can say is: Who needs turkey?!
This is an amazing pie crust - and it is only the third time I have tried to make crust. I don't have a processor so I did it by hand with a fork. It is really one of the best new things I have made at home in a long time.